


you wanna break my heart (alright)

by exbeekeeper



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Pining, also mention of dimitri/dedue same as above, but fuck if im not throwing my hat in the ring. i love them thanks, could not stop thinking about this. i know there's a million of these in their tag already, mention of ingrid/annette but not enough to wanna tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-26 23:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20398222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exbeekeeper/pseuds/exbeekeeper
Summary: The one where the war never happens, Sylvain’s father is pushing him to pass on the Gautier crest, Felix won’t say he’s in love, Dimitri is worried about ... well, everything, and Ingrid has to do everything herself.It takes time.





	1. caught your fever

**Author's Note:**

> i havent been able to stop thinking about them since i got their paired ending in the GD route. disclaimer - i haven't actually finished BL yet so bear with me on some of the characterization. anyway. 
> 
> title is from fever by carly rae jepsen which is a VERY applicable song.

Sylvain isn’t even paying attention when his father brings it up, if he’s honest. He’s been jittery all morning thinking about his plans for the day – his old friends, a whole cabal of the erstwhile Blue Lions, are on their way to his family’s territory now for a friendly visit. It’s been so long since he’s seen any of them, especially those who are visiting today – Dimitri (who’s been tied up in kingly duties), Ingrid (who has been splitting her time between babysitting Dimitri and visiting her girlfriend, Annette), and Felix (off playing the good heir in Fraldarius territory, though Sylvain can sense he itches for something more). 

But first he’s got to get through some council meeting. Hence why he finds himself sitting at his father’s right hand at seven in the morning (bandits to the west, he thinks?) because his father insists he needs the experience if he is to inherit the title (he’s not wrong, but Sylvain still doesn’t know why these meetings can’t happen after he’s had time for coffee) when suddenly and without preamble his father looks sharply at him and says, “Then, of course, there is the matter of my heir’s ascendance.” The other stuffy old men in the room all nod, as if this was on some kind of bulletin Sylvain wasn’t privy to, and he sits up a little straighter as suddenly all eyes are on him. 

“Father, you are in good health, are you not? I hardly think –” 

“The problem,” one of the stuffy-old-men (Sylvain grew up with him around, but he still doesn’t recall the name – he’ll have to get better at that) says, “lies with your… proclivities, young Lord.”

Sylvain frowns, looks to his father. “What –”

The deep frown on Margrave Gautier’s face shuts him up quickly. His father sighs. “Sylvain, you know as well as I that you should have grown out of the way you, er, conduct yourself among women long ago. You will be expected to settle down, pass on your Crest. You cannot be flitting from encounter to encounter like this for much longer.”

Sylvain coughs, schools his face into a placating smile. “Father, I assure you that my current activities will cease as soon as I am due to take the throne. I know my responsibilities. I would not –”

“You say this now, son, but I have seen no evidence that you can remain with one person for longer than a week without proving yourself unfaithful to them. I have made allowances for your youth, but you are nearly twenty-five. If you cannot pull yourself together, I will be forced to further talks with House Galatea regarding a union between his daughter and yourself.” 

Sylvain’s easy humour and good-natured embarrassment about the situation disappear instantly. Ingrid would kill him for sentencing her to that. Not to mention that Annette has been good for Ingrid, who has been denying herself happiness for the sake of her family since he can remember, and while he was not very close with Annette in the academy he is immeasurably grateful for that.

Sylvain may be arrogant, and self-centered, and something of a heartbreaker, but there’s very little he wouldn’t do for his friends, and lying to his father is absolutely not on that list. That’s his justification when he says “I’ve been seeing someone for months.”

He immediately regrets it.

His father blinks. Sylvain can feel the doubtful eyes of the council members on him, and he sort of wishes his father had spoken with him about this in private, but that has never been the way their relationship works, so he holds his ground. Margrave Gautier cracks first, and he frowns at Sylvain in disbelief. “The same person?” 

Sylvain nods, hopes his father’s knowledge of his escapades doesn’t extend to who or when, tries to figure out how the hell he’s going to get himself out of this one. His father stares at him. 

“Er – well, that is wonderful news, then. I trust she is of appropriate standing. Who is it?”

And there it is, the million-gold question. Because Sylvain has spent the past few minutes since he dug his own grave and got stuck at the bottom trying to figure out how to dig his way out without being noticed, and he’s pretty sure he’s got a plan. He just needs to find someone who will be willing to help him.

He winces. Most of the other former Blue Lions of noble birth are seeing people already, fairly publicly, or otherwise they weren’t close enough to be considered for a favor like this back then and certainly wouldn’t be now, five years later. He really only has three friends, if he’s honest. There’s Dimitri, but that’s a non-starter – any dalliance of his with the king would blow up far too quickly and without much reprieve, and anyway Dimitri is a terrible liar. Ingrid is out of the question, too, even though her relationship with Annette isn’t very public, because his father would be too obsessed with making it work – Ingrid is of noble blood and possesses a crest of her own – and, he knows, his father thinks she would not be able to refuse a proposal due to her family’s recent hardships. 

Also, she would hit him for asking, and she’s always been stronger than him. 

His only other friend is Felix. Who… honestly, isn’t a bad choice. His father won’t be obsessed with it working in the long term because of the necessity of passing on his Crest, but it’ll prove to him that Sylvain can be faithful and charming with another noble for longer than a week. 

So Sylvain squares his shoulders, looks his father dead in the eyes, and tells him, “Felix Fraldarius.”

The meeting descends into chaos after that, of course. Sylvain fields their questions with a detachment to rival their old Academy professor and slips away as soon as he’s able. He tells the guards he’s going for a ride, and then hurries out to meet Felix (and Ingrid and Dimitri) before he can be blindsided by the news of their apparent courtship. 

He finds the three of them about two hour’s ride out, Ingrid flying about ten feet off the ground (“just to show off that she can,” Felix had said once) and Felix and Dimitri tagging along behind, bickering about something or other. Ingrid spots him first and lands, dismounting and all but dragging him off his horse’s back to pull him into a fierce hug. Felix, in the middle of telling Dimitri off about something (“I’m telling you, boar, it’s not like that, there’s no way –”) stops entirely when he sees Sylvain.

His hair is longer now than it ever has been before, tied back in a ponytail that reaches well below his shoulders, and he shoots Sylvain an amused smirk. “Just couldn’t wait to see me, could you?” 

Ingrid snorts at him, but says nothing. Sylvain puts his hands on his hips, grinning easily. “You got me, Felix. Every moment I spend without you stabs into the core of my being. When you are gone I do nothing but wait for your return. You –” 

“Shut up, Gautier,” Felix says, climbing off his horse’s back. This one’s new, it seems – they’re not used to each other yet, and Felix isn’t exactly the world’s leading expert on horses to begin with. His tone, amused and full of something like affection, betrays his harsh words. 

Dimitri dismounts as well, clapping Sylvain on the shoulder. Felix crosses his arms over his chest and doesn’t meet Sylvain’s gaze. 

“What are you even doing here? I thought we were going to meet you at your estate.” Felix says. Sylvain shifts uncomfortably. 

“Uh,” he says, “I actually need to talk to you about something.” 

Ingrid gives Sylvain and then Felix in turn twin unreadable looks, and then sighs. “We’re overdue for a break, anyway. Guinevere needs to eat,” she says, motioning to her mount, “so you boys can go do whatever you need to.” She looks equal parts smug and exasperated, and she meets Sylvain’s gaze evenly and without hesitation, and Sylvain wonders how she can possibly know everything that ever goes on in his life before he even has a chance to try to hide it from her. 

Ingrid busies herself with feeding her pegasus and the horses, and Dimitri walks over to lie down in the shade of a nearby tree. His hair has grown long since their academy years, and might be something of a mess were it not for the tie Felix leant him months back. As it is, his hair still falls haphazardly around his face, obscuring his eyes from view. It’s just him and Felix now. Felix stares at him expectantly, arms crossed. 

“Uh, so,” Sylvain starts, and damn, he’s not usually this awkward, but something about the nature of this particular request has him tugging uncomfortably at the sleeves of his tunic, “I need a favor.”

Felix rolls his eyes. “I gathered. What do you want.”

“My dad — you know my dad — he’s been a little more, uh, insistent, lately, with the whole make-little-Crest-babies thing,” Felix nods, a twinge of sympathy coloring his scowl, “and he got the whole council to ambush me about, like, ‘oh, Sylvain, you’ve never been in a relationship longer than, like, a week, no one will deign to marry you at this rate,’ and also kind of implied he’d marry me off to Ingrid? So I sort of, maybe, might have panicked and told him we were together.”

Felix blinks, mouth just slightly agape. It’s almost an achievement, really, how Sylvain still manages to render his friends speechless even after more than twenty years. “I — what?”

“I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend. Just for a little while! Long enough that he’ll see I can pull my shit together long enough to stick with you, and then we can pretend to break up and be done with the whole thing.”

Felix is unreadable, normally, has spent the past twenty-three years perfecting his poker face, but right now all his cold sternness and calculating glares have dropped and Sylvain sees Felix, the Felix he knew at five and nine and thirteen, staring back at him with concern and confusion and something uncomfortably like hurt, though Sylvain can’t think what he could have possibly said to elicit that last response. 

And then the facade snaps back into place, and Felix brings a hand to his forehead in exasperation. “You — okay, back up. Why me?” 

“Well, it wasn’t gonna be Dimitri, for obvious reasons. Ingrid was out because dear old dad would get too invested in it working out, ‘cause of Ingrid’s Crest and her status.” Felix looks at him like he expects Sylvain to continue, and Sylvain just sighs in response. “C’mon, Felix. Are you really gonna make me say it? I don’t actually have that many other friends.”

“Why not one of your girlfriends? Surely you can find it in your heart to keep one around for a few more weeks than normal,” Felix says. 

Sylvain frowns. “They’d get too invested, too. I don’t want to have some girl trailing after me for the rest of my life because she got too attached while I was trying to get my dad off my back.”

The eye roll he receives in response is one of Felix’s most exasperated. “Right, because you are just irresistible. Anyone exposed to your blinding light for too long falls madly, deeply in love with you. How could I forget.” 

“That’s why it’s gotta be you,” Sylvain says, grinning toothily, “because you, my friend, are immune to my charms. You’d never fall in love with me.”

Felix looks away. There’s a beat, and then he says, “What’s in it for me?” 

Sylvain doesn’t cheer aloud, but it’s a near thing. Instead, he says, “Take your pick,” because he really needs this. 

Felix crosses his arms and says, “Pay for my training gear for a month. Also, you owe me. One favor, no matter what I ask, to be determined whenever I decide I need something your sorry ass can provide.”

Sylvain wisely chooses not to protest, although he thinks these are very unfair terms. Instead he puts his hands behind his head with a grin and says, “Thank you, Felix, really.” 

Felix grumbles and looks off to the side. Ingrid wanders over, then, apparently sensing that the conversation is tapering off, and uses a shoulder to shove Sylvain out of her way (he does not squawk indignantly, thank you very much). “What are you two planning? More importantly, am I going to have to deal with the aftermath?” she asks, giving both of them a warning look.

Here’s the thing. Sylvain and Felix have gotten into trouble of various kinds over the past twenty-some years of their lives. Ingrid finds out every time, regardless of how well they think they’re hiding it, and usually if they try to hide it, she just ends up getting angrier than she would if she knew about it. 

Sylvain honestly can’t think of a reason she would be mad about this, other than her general compunctions about truth and honor, but Felix clears his throat and glances at Sylvain, apparently seeking some kind of approval. Sylvain shrugs.

“Sylvain told the Margrave we were together to prove to his father he wasn’t allergic to commitment,” Felix says. 

Ingrid’s mouth drops open. Dimitri gets up from his place beneath the tree and walks over with a sense of urgency. He gives Felix a look Sylvain can’t read, and Felix refuses to meet his gaze. 

“I – what? Why?” Ingrid says, clearly at a loss for words. She looks expectantly to Sylvain. 

He shrugs. “My father worried I wouldn’t be able to follow through on my duties when the time comes, and then he threatened to marry me off to you, Ingrid, and I couldn’t do that to you, so I told him I was seeing someone, and he asked who, and I really don’t have that many people I could ask, so I said it was Felix.” 

Ingrid looks, almost worriedly, over at Felix, who waves her off with a hand. “It’s just a couple months, Ingrid. We’ll stage a break-up and then things will be back to normal. It’ll be fine.” 

Doubt is written all over her face, but she swallows whatever she meant to say and instead nods, grimacing. “Alright. Don’t get caught, idiots. Let’s get back on the road.” 

Dimitri stops Felix on their way back to the horses and says something to him Sylvain doesn’t catch. Ingrid bumps her shoulder into his as they make their way back to where the horses are grazing in the sun. 

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she says, looking back at Felix and Dimitri. 

Sylvain furrows his brow, but before he can respond Felix is shaking Dimitri’s hand off his shoulder and stalking back over to the two of them. They set out without another word on the subject, Sylvain and Ingrid filling the silence with chatter about the various happenings in their lives lately. Dimitri cuts in occasionally, but Felix remains quiet, riding his horse a few feet ahead of the other three and clearly lost in thought.


	2. i'll be feeling it forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvain gives him a sheepish grin, one Felix is sure has gotten him out of trouble with his various conquests many a time. _Is that what I am now,_ Felix thinks bitterly, _another one of his conquests?_

“Felix,” Ingrid says, catching his arm to hold him back. She’d volunteered the two of them to see their horses off to the stables, leaving Sylvain and the boar prince to check in with the Margrave and all but dragging Felix off with her. They’d dropped off the horses in relative silence, and for one wild, shining moment Felix thought he might be able to avoid this confrontation entirely, but now here they are. 

He sighs, turns to face her. “Yes, Ingrid?” 

She stares at him, appraising. “What the hell are you thinking?”

It’s a good question, Felix admits, and one that he doesn’t actually think he has the answer to either. Felix is a master of denial, has pushed back these feelings of his for something like ten years now, but he has admitted – if only to himself, Ingrid, and, begrudgingly, through a series of mishaps involving Ingrid’s loud disbelief and an unfortunately cracked-open window, Dimitri – the existence of aforementioned feelings. He’s got a pretty good handle on them these days, has resigned himself to the fact of being half in love with his childhood best friend for the rest of his life no matter how much Ingrid pushes for him to either confess or find someone else.

None of this means he is emotionally prepared to play pretend with the feelings he’s been hiding for the better part of a decade. He’s been trying desperately not to think about the intricacies of that – the casual touches, the closeness he’ll have to get comfortable with, familiar with before it’s all taken away again. A hollow imitation of the one thing his heart aches for. 

He’s not sure he’ll survive that. So no, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s thinking. He sighs and looks at Ingrid, schools his face into a scowl and says, in his best approximation of his own usual deadpan, “Maybe he’ll be so insufferable I’ll snap out of it.”

Ingrid only narrows her eyes at him – a surefire sign he has not gotten away with anything and probably never will – and says, “Felix, I will never understand your taste in men,” ouch, Felix thinks, but that’s fair, “but if it’s stuck around this long I’m not sure anything can knock sense into you anymore. You’ve seen him drunk out of his mind at festivals, mooning over anything with a pulse.” 

“Not anything,” Felix says, only half meaning for Ingrid to hear. By the way her face softens, it’s clear she has, and she lets go of his arm. 

“Felix, I really think you should –”

Felix groans, dropping his head into his hands. “Ingrid, I’m not telling him. It won’t do any good.”

“Wouldn’t it be good just to know? Then even if the worst happens you can at least start to move on.”

“Do you think I haven’t been trying? I have tried. You know I’ve tried, you were _there._ None of them stick, because apparently I’m only interested in pretty, good-for-nothing redheads with bad personalities.” 

Ingrid looks deep in thought. “I bet he’s not the only pretty, good-for-nothing redhead with a bad personality. Actually, doesn’t Ferdinand fit that description?”

“You know what I mean, Ingrid. It’s not fair of me to keep trying to move onto other people when I’m pretty goddamn sure at this point it’s always going to be him.”

Ingrid sighs. “Felix…”

“I’m done talking about this, okay? I’ll manage, or whatever. I always do.” 

Felix stalks off, away from the stables and up toward the main castle belonging to the Gautier estate. He’s pretty sure Ingrid is following him, but he doesn’t look back to check, focusing instead on trying to tamp down whatever feelings (gross) he might be having about this to be unpacked later (or, preferably, never). 

He meets up with the boar and Sylvain in the entrance hall. Margrave Gautier is there – purely for the sake of greeting _His Highness_, Felix is sure, as whenever he’s visited alone or with only Ingrid he has not received such a welcome from the Margrave himself – talking Kingdom business with Dimitri while Sylvain tries very hard not to look bored. The latter perks up when he sees them enter, grinning excitedly at Felix without a hint of his usual debonair affect, and his heart jumps in its chest. 

Sometimes when Felix sees Sylvain – especially this Sylvain, the one that lives beyond the womanizing good-for-nothing, beyond the dutiful heir, even beyond the determined soldier, the Sylvain Felix selfishly thinks (hopes) might just be for him – it’s like he’s a child again, like he can pretend everything is easy. 

He’s six and Sylvain could have dropped him ages ago in favor of the other eight-year-olds, who, Felix knows, tease him for always having such a gloomy little shadow, but he didn’t. Sylvain stuck by him, let him hold onto his hand like a lifeline, taught him to skip stones and catch the little, shining crustaceans at the bottom of the shallow stream on his family’s grounds. Or he’s nine and crying into Sylvain’s shoulder, completely unselfconsciously, over something thoughtless Glenn said, and Sylvain tells him jokes to make him feel better and then they practice swordplay until their shoulders are numb and Felix’s mother is scolding them for overdoing it. 

Or he’s eleven, and he has to ask Glenn why Sylvain’s suddenly not around so much, what those village girls have that he doesn’t, and Glenn sighs and explains, “Sylvain’s older, kiddo. He’s just getting crushes sooner than you. You’ll catch up in no time, and the two of you will be back to normal.”

“Crushes?”

“Oh… ah. It’s, like… it’s how people feel about their partners. Like, you always want to be around them, and they make your heart speed up, and you don’t like when they spend time with other people, and you want to be close to them.” 

Felix had nodded, very seriously. “I got crushes for Sylvain.” 

Glenn blinks. “A crush is, uh, romantic. Sorry, should have made that clear.” 

Felix had furrowed his brow and mumbled oh at the time and that had been the end of the subject, but the feelings Glenn had described never quite stopped matching the way he felt about Sylvain, and eventually he had realized, sometime during their Academy days, that there was a reason for that. 

Felix shakes his head to clear it and crosses the room to stand next to Sylvain. This isn’t unusual; for all Felix’s griping, and for all that he wished things could have been different, he and Sylvain were still best friends, and he allowed himself this modicum of closeness. 

It _is_ unusual, however, when Sylvain snakes an arm around his waist and pulls him flush against his side. Felix hopes his surprise doesn’t register too openly on his face; his heart is hammering in his chest and he’s sure he let out some kind of a gasp, though all things considered Sylvain is lucky it wasn’t worse. 

He was hoping they’d have a chance to talk more about this beforehand, but apparently not. Felix plasters his best neutral smile onto his face and says, “Hello, Margrave.” 

Margrave Gautier smiles back at Felix, though he swears it’s a bit strained. “Good to see you again, Felix. I trust you are well?”

Felix nods. Sylvain’s hand is burning into his hip like a brand, the solid warmth against his side nearly unbearable, and it takes all the willpower he has not to let it affect his speech. “The trip was uneventful, though my horse and His Highness’s don’t seem to get along too well.” 

The Margrave laughs politely and then, after a moment where he’s clearly waiting to see if any of them will speak, says, “I believe I must excuse myself. Try not to get yourselves into too much trouble.” 

He sweeps out of the room. The four friends wait a beat before bursting into laughter. “He knows we’re not eight anymore, right?” Ingrid says through giggles. 

Sylvain releases Felix, then. Felix moves away from him with all the grace of a cat, careful not to appear too jumpy while removing himself from Sylvain’s grasp as swiftly as possible, trying not to let it show that he already aches for the contact. Sylvain gives him a sheepish grin, one Felix is sure has gotten him out of trouble with his various conquests many a time. _Is that what I am now,_ Felix thinks bitterly, _another one of his conquests?_

“Sorry about that, Felix,” Sylvain says easily, “but it would have looked suspicious if I acted the same around you as I always have.” 

Felix nods. “Yeah, whatever. We need to talk more about this. What’s our end goal? Our strategy?” 

Sylvain laughs at him, but nods. “You’re treating this like a battle, Felix. Am I that awful to be close to?” 

Felix just stares at him (no, that’s the problem, you oblivious fool). Ingrid coughs. 

Dimitri says, “I think Felix may be correct, though. He nearly jumped out of his skin when you put an arm around him; it’s a marvel the Margrave didn’t notice something was off then and there. If you’re going to pull this off, you’ll have to have some semblance of a plan.” 

“Don’t agree with me, boar,” Felix sneers, but there’s no heat in his voice. The two of them have been, slowly but surely, repairing their relationship over the years, to the point where now Felix would, privately and grudgingly, call Dimitri his friend once again. That doesn’t mean he’s willing to drop the act, of course, but from Dimitri’s chuckle he can tell the other man knows his prickliness is more habit than hatred at this point. 

Ingrid sighs. “I’m gonna go put my bags down. You two go figure this out. Dimitri, come with me, please?” 

She walks off, up the stairs to the guest quarters they’ve stayed in ever since they were children, and Dimitri follows. Sylvain stares at Felix. He stares back, gaze even and steady. Sylvain sighs. “Alright, we can go up to my quarters to talk about this, I guess.” 

Felix follows him up the stairs, through the hallways he remembers from years past, down the corridor to Sylvain’s room. He closes his eyes, tries not to think about the fact that they haven’t been alone together in this room since he was twelve, and walks in after Sylvain, shutting the door carefully behind him. His skin feels warm and prickly, and he feels suddenly very silly, standing so awkwardly in the doorway of the room where many of his best childhood memories took place, so he crosses the room to sit down on Sylvain’s bed.

Sylvain falls down onto the bed next to him and looks sidelong at Felix. “So…” he says, and, damn him, he really is going to make Felix do all the work here, isn’t he? 

“How long are we doing this?” Felix asks. He thinks he deserves a goddamn medal for holding back his groan. 

“Uh, a couple months, I guess. I was thinking, since it’s summer, we could keep it up until we’re all at Dimitri’s for the Harvest feast, and then stage a breakup then?” 

Felix snorts. “Do you really think your father will buy that you’re in a relationship with someone you hardly see?”

“Um,” Sylvain says with a frown, “probably not.”

“_Of course not,_ you mean. We –” God, Felix has a death wish – “we’ll have to find ways to see each other more often. Like a couple would.” 

Sylvain nods. “You’ll have to get used to me touching you.” Felix closes his eyes, counts to ten. His waist still burns where Sylvain touched it before, if he really pictures it, and of course he is picturing it. He nods, silently. 

“You can’t … you can’t see any other women, while we’re pretending to be together,” Felix says. There’s some small comfort, at least – while this charade is going on, basically for an entire summer, Felix won’t have to hear about Sylvain’s various girlfriends. 

“Aw, baby,” Sylvain teases, “you know you’re the only one for me.” 

Felix pushes him off the bed in a desperate bid to hide the burning in his cheeks. His chest feels heavy. Sylvain’s laughter rings through the hall, clear and joyous like it never is with anyone else, and Felix thinks for a wild moment that if he can just have this for himself, he’ll be alright. Sylvain’s girlfriends get his attention and his affection, and one day Sylvain will have a wife and she’ll have his love, but only Felix gets to hear him laugh like this. 

They are quiet for a few moments, and then Ingrid pushes open the door, hair in just enough disarray that Felix can tell she ran here. “I heard a crash. What the hell did you do? It’s barely been fifteen minutes!” 

Sylvain, still sprawled out on the floor and grinning, points at Felix. “He pushed me off the bed!” 

Felix crosses his arms and resolutely does not make eye contact with Ingrid. “I was justified. He called me baby.”

He doesn’t see Ingrid’s face, but he hopes it doesn’t too closely resemble the sharp, worried intake of breath. She seems at a loss for words for a moment, before she regains her composure and decides on, “You two are hopeless. Sylvain, get up.” 

She grabs his arm. Sylvain allows Ingrid to pull him to his feet. Ingrid looks over at Felix. “Can we go get dinner? I’m starving.” 

“Where’s the boar?” Felix asks, standing up from Sylvain’s bed. 

“He wanted to write Dedue as soon as we got here because, and I quote, ‘you know how he worries.’ He said he’d meet me here when he was done.” 

Sylvain rolls his eyes. “And they’re still not together? God, he’s oblivious.” 

Ingrid looks for a moment like she wants to throttle Sylvain, but she manages to hold it back. “Yeah,” she says, looking meaningfully at Felix, “I wonder what it must be like to have someone so clearly smitten with you and be so fully unaware of it?” Felix shoots her a warning look, but she either does not see it or, if she does, she ignores him entirely. 

“Oh, I was talking about Dimitri’s feelings, actually. I mean, he so clearly feels the same, I’m not sure how he hasn’t realized it yet.” 

Felix bites the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming. He really does not want to respond to this, but he doesn’t want Ingrid to, either – she has, he knows, a secret theory that Sylvain loves him back, and will without a doubt take this as further proof of her theory. Felix knows he won’t be able to avoid hearing about it later, but for now he says, “Don’t be stupid. He’s the _king._ Even if he does feel the same way toward Dedue, who’s to say he hasn’t realized those feelings and chosen not to act on them for the sake of the kingdom? You know Dimitri. He’ll put his people before his own happiness any day.”

Ingrid’s tone is clipped when she says, “Yeah, it would be nice if he would stop being such a self-defeatist asshole.” 

Felix glares at her, but is saved from having to offer the response he doesn’t have by Dimitri entering the room. 

“My apologies,” he says, and then, “are we all settled here, then? If so, dinner may be in order.” 

Ingrid nods determinedly. “Yeah, let’s go get something to eat.” And that’s that. 

The four of them make their way to the kitchen, Ingrid leading the charge, and by the time night properly falls they are sitting outside, laughing as Sylvain chases after fireflies under the moonlight, and Felix is sure, in this moment, that he wouldn’t wish any of this away, no matter how much it might hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i like to think if it weren't for the war and dimitri's uh shall we say mental breakdown, him and felix might have been able to work on patching things up. so thats what im doing here
> 
> next up: felix talks to the Margrave, sylvain suggests that they should Practice Closeness, and ingrid is very, very tired.

**Author's Note:**

> sylvain: you'd never fall in love with me :)  
felix (who's been in love with him since he was eleven): uh yeah of course i wouldn't that would be crazy haha.......
> 
> i don't have an update schedule or anything planned but i love them enough that this isn't gonna get dropped so like it'll be up Sometime
> 
> next chapter will probably be felix pov i think i'm gonna switch back and forth


End file.
